Since reading A.H. Reed's book From North Cape to Bluff as a teenager the idea of a long journey has intrigued me. Then in 2002 the owner of my favourite bookshop suggested I read Geoff Chapple's Te Araroa, which really got me thinking seriously about doing a long tramp.
Mainly I am walking the proposed Te Araroa path with the only serious deviation being to go east from Tongariro and then head down the hills to Wellington. I hope to have the North Island finished in April and then will start tackling the South Island one weekend at a time until the holidays at the end of the first semester.
